Immortal Guardian
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: he was sacrificed to save the world.Or so he thought.He should have known that Naruto would never just let him die even if it was to save everyone else but that doesn't explain why he woke up in a modern day city, or why he feels a peculiar attachment to-
1. Chapter 1

He was sacrificed to save the world, or so he thought. He should have known that Naruto wouldn't simply let him die. Even if it was to save everyone else. But that doesn't explain why he woke up in modern day city. Or why he feels a peculiar attachment to the blond haired, violet eyed bomb shell who is a dead ringer for Naruto in his female form. Or why there is a sect of mad men after him and his new companion.

Okay, here is my new story.

I hope it's good.

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The world ended with a brilliant flash of light, and demon's deafening roar, and gale storm winds that threw him back into one of the crumbling stone walls of the cave.

The light was so brilliant that it burned his exposed skin, and eyes, causing his blood to heat and start to boil in his veins as the winds picked up little jagged shards of stone and whipped them every which way. He tried to curl his body to protect himself, but couldn't seem to move.

He gritted his teeth against a wave of agony when a sharp rock tore through his left shoulder, and several others tore through the soft tissues in his stomach and upper thighs, driving the remaining breath from his lungs.

He was vaguely aware of hearing Naruto's voice calling out over the deafening sounds of the ten tailed demon's enraged cries. _"I'm sorry sensei! I'm sorry!"_

He felt his lips curve up a little bit into a small, almost sad smile. He knew that Naruto hadn't wanted to do it. To sacrifice him for the sake of everyone else. But he had been backed into a corner with no _chance_ or _hope_ of saving anyone unless he used someone as raw material to re seal the demon.

But to be honest he knew that the younger man would choose the others over him. He'd known from the beginning. And that was fine. He was old, had fought many great fights, and now longed for nothing more than to end his existence.

If all it took to end the war was one more tiny sacrifice then he was fine with his fate, however much Naruto may regret it. However much he and the others still alive may mourn. None of those things matter to him because they would be alive.

They would re build. And the future generations would inherit the will of fire that he had once had.

He felt something wet trickle out of the corners of his eyes and for a moment he wanted to respond. But the pain drove all conscious thought from his mind as his bones started to shatter and his organs were ripped to pieces...

Or at least that was what it felt like to him before he slipped away.

The world ended in a brilliant flash of light, and was re born in that same instant-

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Okay, here was the first chapter.

Not bad for something short. I actually had some trouble writing this chapter...among other things.

I'm also going to have a co author for this story Rin O' Gen, has said that she would love to help, and I'm excited.

So, read and review and let me know what you think while I move on to the next chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

_Naruto refused to move from his sensei's bedside. He refused to eat, or sleep and instead focused all of his attention on trying to get the silver haired man to wake up. _

_The seal that he had used Kakashi as raw material for, hadn't killed him. Naruto had modified it so that he could re seal the demon using Kakashi without killing him. Yet even so, Kakashi wasn't breathing on his own. His heart wasn't beating and pumping blood through his body like it should. _

_Nothing was going as it should._

_The door opened and Sakura walked in wearing her nurses uniform and walked over to Naruto and placed one hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Will he ever wake up Sakura?" Naruto asked as he turned his head and looked at her through wide azure eyes, a pleading expression on his face. _

_Sakura gave him a blank look, she didn't like the fact that she was about to crush her friend in a literal sense, but Naruto needed to let go of Kakashi. There was simply no signs of him breathing on his own or of his heart re starting, nor was there any brain wave activity. _

_The Kakashi that they knew, was dead and gone. Leaving nothing but a broken hollow shell behind. "Naruto..." _

_Naruto looked away from her instantly, recognising her tone as the same one that she had used the day that Tsunade had died and he had become Hokage. His heart aching in his chest, he looked at the man that had been like an extremely weird brother to him and couldn't help but cry. _

_He didn't understand why this was happening. He had done everything right!_

_He had saved everyone! He had even modified the seal so that he wouldn't end up killing Kakashi! Everything was supposed to be okay now-_

_But it wasn't. _

_Naruto looked back at the former copy nin and thought about everything that he was being cheated out of. Kakashi was only twenty six for fuck sake. He had planned to give up being a Special Jounin and settle down and eventually marry. _

_He had even joked with Gai about their future kids marrying so that they could both be family for real. _

_And now...now he would never have any of those things that had seemed so precious to him after the fall of the leaf village. Now there was nothing but death awaiting him. And it was all Naruto's fault...  
_


	3. Chapter 3

This wasn't very well written of me was it?

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Kakashi's funeral was an event to remember.

Every man woman and child in the village was there, laying white lilies around the solid silver casket lined with gold and embedded with sapphires, rubies and emeralds. There was crying and wailing among the people, mourning the copy nin's death.

Naruto stood towards the back, watching intently. He had retraced his steps so to speak and had realised his mistake and just how severe it was. Kakashi wasn't dead like Sakura and everyone else seemed to think. He was however in a state of suspended animation and unless Naruto tampered with the seal that he had placed on Kakashi, he might sleep forever.

He waited for hours and finally when the sun started to set and everyone was gone, Naruto stood over the open casket staring down at his former sensei.

Kakashi looked the same as he always had with a few minor exceptions. His silver hair had been brushed, his face had been left uncovered, and he was wearing his former Anbu uniform with his snarling wolf mask resting on his stomach under his gloved, clawed hands.

Naruto reached out and ran his fingers through the copy nin's hair, fixing it so that it looked a little more normal then reached down a little bit and grasped Kakashi's wrist in his hand and pulled at his arm a little bit to test and see if Kakashi's body had stiffened with rigors mortise and smiled a little bit when the copy nin's arm moved just like Naruto's own arm.

Rolling up the copy nin's glove a little bit Naruto held his arm in one hand and lifted the other to his mouth and bit down on the pad his index finger, ignoring the twinge of pain he carefully drew a counter seal on the inside of Kakashi's wrist so that one day he would awaken and then leaned down over the man and whispered.

"I want you to use my blood to track me down when you wake up so that I may give you back your stolen time..."

Kakashi didn't respond, but somehow Naruto _knew_ that he had heard him as he finished the counter seal and rolled the glove back down into place around the copy nin's wrist to protect the seal then placed his arm back the way it had been then quietly left.


	4. Chapter 4

Seven hundred years later-

The inside of the Museum of Field History looked like a war zone.

There were papers, banners and priceless artifacts everywhere. Display cases that were only a little bit or half way full, priceless antiquities still in their protective wrappings while the curator and her subordinates ran around the large gold and red toned room trying to put everything together for their latest and by far the coolest exhibit ever.

The exhibit centered around a perfectly preserved mummy that had been unearthed in a cave full of treasure's. Ancient scrolls and texts, jewels, even armor and weapons dating all the way back to 722 A.C.

The mummy itself, along with a majority of the treasures dated to the fifteenth century, so it was a mite of a curiosity as to how the other treasures had gotten in the cave, but they weren't the sort of people to knit pick when they had such wonderful, _wonderful_ things in their hands.

Uzu Shala Namikaze stood in the center of the mess barking out orders to her subordinates. "Michi! Walk! Don't run! So help me god that box of weapons is more precious to me than your life! Shin! Why is that display case not labeled right? Do I have to knock you people over the head with Attila the Hun's helmet before I get results? Our deadline is ten tonight!"

The men all grumbled and did as she asked as she turned on her heel and walked back out of the room so that she didn't end up physically harming someone. The soft click of her three inch heels announcing her comings and goings as she walked from room to room, occasionally swinging by other exhibits and seeing if the patrons visiting enjoyed their visit before heading back to her office.

She stepped through the door of her office and moved over to her desk and sat down and started to pull off her uncomfortable shoes when her phone rang. Groaning and rolling her eyes heaven ward, she reached out and grabbed her phone and held it between her shoulder and her ear. "Hello."

"Uzu, how's the new exhibit coming along?"

She rolled her eyes again. Dammit. Of all the times for her friend Sauske Haruno, had to call her, it would be today when she was the most stressed. "I really should get caller I.D-" Uzu muttered, more to herself then Sauske before answering his question. "It's coming along fine. I barked out a few orders, a few more threats and then left them to their work. The exhibit will be up and ready before eight tonight."She said as she pulled one of her shoes off and massaged her foot before switching over and doing the same to her other foot as Sauske chuckled.

"I figured as much. Will you be working late tonight?" _Ah. So that's why he had called._ Uzu mused. Sauske must have gotten bored and decided to play hooky from work and wanted a partner in crime for the day.

"I'm not robbing a bank with you." She said automatically as she put her feet back on the floor and flinched a little bit at how cold the tile floor was and settled herself so that her feet were flat on the floor.

Sauske didn't even miss a beat. "Who said anything about robbing a bank? I thought we'd knock off a few loan sharks and hijack an armored car."

"The answer is still no."

"So you have to work then?"

"Fraid so."

Sauske sighed in defeat on the other end of the line. "Alright...I'll be there in ten minutes to kidnap you then-"

"And I will lock the doors."

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Yay! I wrote something!

I'm so happy.

Sorry that I didn't update sooner, I went to visit my mammaw Kay.


	5. Chapter 5

Uzu took off running out of her office the second she had responded to Sauske's kidnapping threat.

She ran down the long hall, weaving her way through the crowd of visitors, past the room where her subordinates were working and headed strait for the security office to lock down the front doors so that Sauske couldn't get in.

It wasn't that she was scared of him or anything. This was merely a game that they played whenever one was coming after the other. A way devised by the two of them to appease their need to play cat and mouse and see whom could outsmart whom. It was a need that they had developed when they had both lived on the streets as kids, stealing and savaging to survive, and it was a need that had still drove them today.

She hit the security office at the same exact moment that Sauske's limo pulled up, she knew that it was him because the security office was right next to the glass doors and she could see the glossy black vehicle pull up to the museum front steps.

_Oh frick._ Uzu thought as she opened the door to the security office and stumbled a little bit as her cell phone rang. _Frick, frick, frick... _Uzu thought as she started to lunge for the computer when she was grabbed by a pair of strong arms around the waist and spun around in a circle as Sauske cackled in her ear.

"Got ya, you sexy little librarian, you."

"Sauske! Put me down!"

"Never-" The man said as he spun her around in another circle, followed by another, and another and another until she was starting to get dizzy and just a little bit nauseous.

"Sauske... Put me- My head is- I'm gonna puke on your shoes..." Uzu said in a weak tone as everything spun and her stomach lurched dangerously.

"Please don't. My shoes are expensive." Sauske said as he finally decided to take pity on her. Or maybe it wasn't pity and was simply self preservation instinct, and put her down and grasped her upper arm to keep her from staggering.

"They're going to be ruined expensive shoes if you don't stop spinning me around, _you bastard_." Uzu wheezed as he pulled her against his chest and held her there with one arm around her slender waist so that she wouldn't fall and hurt herself.

Sauske held himself perfectly still and rubbed her back a little bit. "Sorry, Uzu. I was so happy to see you that I forgot that you can't stand being spun around." Sauske said softly as she pushed against his chest, signaling him that she was fine now and he could let her go.

He dropped his hands to his sides and looked her over, his dark eyes taking in every detail.

At twenty four, Uzu was still the same haunting beauty that he remembered.

She still had the smooth unblemished ivory skin, angelic features, mid back length silvery blond hair, exotic wide violet eye, soft pink lips. The bottom just a little bit fuller than the top. Petite build, lush curves in all the right places. And an adorable smile.

Yet she tried to hide her beauty behind some fake wire rimmed glasses.

She wore her hair up in a tight, intricate knot. And wore outfits that made her look like an old school librarian. Today she was wearing a lavender satin lined dress jacket, a white button up shirt, buttoned all the way up to her chin with a lavender silk ribbon tied in a bow at her throat and an loose flowing lavender ankle length skirt that did absolutely nothing for those shapely long legs and that sexy tight ass of hers.

"My god your bringing the librarian look back-" Sauske said in a aghast tone as he looked her over from head to foot, wishing that he had brought her something suitable to wear for her kidnapping. Like a skin tight leather leotard with matching high heels and a utility belt. Something that would really rock. "I like the lavender. Purple has always looked good on you." He said after a moment or so before asking her.

"Why aren't you dressed more appropriately for your age? Is there some sort of dress code here? Or do you take perverse joy in giving these geeks and history buffs nothing to fantasize about late at night?"

Uzu wrinkled her nose a little bit and waved one hand dismissively in the air between them. "Because I don't want too. No. And yes, I get a real kick out of giving the men here no reason at all to look at me twice."

Sauske narrowed his dark eyes at her as she turned and started walking and quickly fell into step beside her so that they could talk some more and said, knowing with absolute certainty that she had done this. "You lied about your age on your job resume."

Uzu gave him a cool look behind those little geeky glasses she was wearing and smirked, not caring in the least if he thought her stupid or not. "Yup."

"How old did you say you are?" Sauske asked curiously as she led him further down the hall towards the back of the building.

"Fifty." Uzu said without a hint of remorse as he stared at her with his jaw hanging open in shock before he stuttered.

"S-Seriously? You told them that you were fifty? How the hell did you manage to pull that off? You don't even look fifty!"

Uzu stopped walking and cleared her throat a little bit and slouched some and bent her legs a little bit at the knee and started walking very slowly stopping every few paces or so to pat down her skirt and jacket and muttering in a slightly soft airy tone. "Now what did I do with my teeth and glasses?" Sauske stood there watching her curiously for a moment before shaking his head in disbelief as a young man walked up to her and asked her if she was lost.

She gave him a practiced toothless smile as the man offered his arm and started to lead her to the area that she said she had to get too to find her grand kids.

How anyone could mistake someone so young and pretty for an elderly person, no matter how well she played the part, was beyond him. But then he supposed that it shouldn't have been so surprising. Uzu was a chameleon. She could naturally blend into places without effort.

That's why he had so much fun hanging out with her, she could get him into places no one else could and she was damn good to have around in a fight.


	6. Chapter 6

"So where are you taking me after you kidnap me?" Uzu asked as Sauske once again fell into step beside her and followed her down the museum halls to her office. Sauske shrugged his shoulders. He hadn't really thought that far ahead, but now that she mentioned it, he supposed that he could cross drinking and bar hopping off of the list of things to do.

He made a humming sound as she walked over to her desk and bent down at the waist and grabbed her lavender colored heels and slipped them onto her feet. "Well first off, were going to get you some clothes that are more flattering to you. Then we're probably going to go somewhere for lunch. After that...well I haven't seen you in a while so maybe I'll make up for lost time by catching up over a nice long shopping spree. I know that I've missed Valentines day, Christmas, and your birthday last year. I think that calls for some serious diamond and silk and satin action. Don't you?"

Uzu snorted in amusement and looked at him with an irritated expression on her face. "Seriously, Sauske. We aren't married or dating, so why would you feel the need to buy me anything other than lunch?"

"Because I have a fifty nine thousand dollar limit on my credit card, and I really, really like my friend. Do I really need to explain my reason's on why I want to spoil you? Most women would kill to have a friend who wants to take them shopping for diamonds and silk and satin and stuff."

"Yes. But I'm not most women."

"God isn't that the truth-" Sauske muttered as he rolled his eyes. "But that's just another reason why I want to do this. Besides every woman needs creature comforts and indulgences. Don't you ever feel the need to make yourself pretty?"

Uzu snorted again. "No." She said as she started to walk past him, she wasn't going to bother with her purse since she'd have to come back to the museum to check on the progress of her subordinates later on anyways.

Sauske gave a breathy laugh and shook his head slightly. "Girl you are some piece of work. You have to be the only woman on gods green earth with absolutely _no_ interest in diamonds, pretty clothes, or anything else outside of work. How are you going to snag yourself a man?"

"I don't care much for men other than friendship. Anything beyond that is pointless since I'm married to my work." Uzu said as she brushed past him on her way out of the office. Sauske chuckled and pulled the door closed behind him and followed her out without another word.

Arguing with her was pointless anyways. So he might as well just cut his losses and buy her some nice new clothes and take her out to lunch. A nice, long, non boring lunch where he could relax.

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Hours later-

It was dark outside when Sauske's limo pulled up outside of the museum and the back door was pushed open from the inside as the raven haired man climbed out of the limo laughing hysterically as he reached for his companion who's face was _still_ an adorable shade of pink after the incident during dinner where nine, yes that's right, _nine_ different men had insisted on trying to ask Uzu out.

It had been the funniest thing he'd seen in a long time.

Nine different men swarming around Uzu while she had been trying to enjoy her dinner, all of them throwing out date offers and two of them had even proposed marriage on the spot!It was the new clothes, Sauske mused as he pulled her out of the back seat of the limo and out into the open under a street light and looked her over appreciatively.

She looked like a total hottie in her off the shoulder black cotton scoop necked shirt and skin tight jeans with matching black leather lace up boots with heels. Her silver blond hair had been pulled back into a sleek pony tail at the back of her head, and she was wearing a white gold and amethyst necklace and earrings that he had bought for her.

"Stop laughing you ass." Uzu growled at him the instant she was out of the back seat. Sauske let go of her hand and shook his head as he doubled over laughing even harder.

"I-I c-can't. I-I-It's soooo f-funny!" He wheezed as he recalled the panicked look on her face before she had jumped up and run into the back of the restaurant so that she could hide in the ladies room. She bared her teeth at him and took a threatening step forward as he leaned against the limo and tried to stop laughing.

"It's not funny you jerk. I hate it when people do that! That's why I lied on my resume! I walked in to do a little recon a week before my interview and saw at least thirteen young men without wedding rings on and I acted accordingly!"

Sauske stopped laughing and looked at her as he used one hand to wipe away the tears that had slipped down one of his cheeks, his amusement fading as he realised what she was saying. It was rather sobering that he had forgotten something so important. "You lied about your age because you didn't want attention?"

"I hate getting attention like that!" Uzu hissed at him, feeling frustrated that once again people had noticed_ nothing_ about her but her looks.

Things had been like that ever since she was a child.

All anyone ever saw when they looked at her was her beauty. When she had been living on the streets she had been targeted by every pervert, pedophile, and pimp in the city. In school she had been the object of every school boy's affections. Things had gotten so bad that several of her teachers had taken an interest in her and tried to seduce her among other things.

The girls had attacked her, the boys had attacked her (though for different reasons) and after ending up in the hospital several times she had gotten tired of it all and tried to make herself less noticeable. She had dressed in grungy clothes, she had cut her hair and dyed it to make herself look like a punk and all sorts of other things. She had even had Sauske teach her how to fight so that she wouldn't have to rely on anyone to ever come to her rescue if she got into trouble.

And she'd been a damn good student.

And a year ago when she had finally finished collage and went job hunting, her looks was all anyone had seen. She had gone to several job interviews where her potential bosses had stared at nothing but her breasts, while others had told her that she could have the job that's he was applying for...for a little favor or two. One man had even dropped his pants right there in his office after she had commented on how pretty his wife was.

Needless to say, she had put _that_ pig in his place and walked out of his office feeling sick.

Sauske could have kicked himself for not remembering how much Uzu hated attention from others. Sure he had been happy to see her earlier, but that was no excuse for hurting her by dolling her up and accidentally making her relive every horrible memory she had while trying to spend some time with her. "Fuck, Uzu. I'm sorry." To be perfectly honest his memory hadn't been all that great ever since he had been shot in the head by a disgruntled worker a little over a year ago.

The doctors had said that that was to be expected, and while he understood that and couldn't help it, it was at times like this when it truly bothered him that he couldn't remember such important details.

Uzu took several deep breaths and sighed once she finally managed to get her temper back under control again, she knew very well that Sauske had a bad memory since the incident and that he hadn't remembered about her looks, and while she could have said something to remind him, she had chosen to stay silent about her discomfort and had chosen to indulge him a little since she didn't see him often.

"It's fine Sauske. The next time you say anything about my looks I'll just knock you out and drag you to a tattoo parlor and have someone tattoo a reminder on your forehead." Uzu said in a light hearted attempt to make Sauske feel a little better about his blunder. His lips quirked up in a small smile as he fished her glasses out of his inner jacket pocket and handed them to her.

"Could you make sure to have my address, phone number, social security number, and birthday onto my forehead too?"

Uzu grinned at him as she took her glasses and put them on. "Sure. We'll sit down in a little bit and make a list for the occasion."

Sauske laughed softly. "Awesome. Now shall we go see if that exhibit is up?" He asked as he offered her his arm. Uzu slipped her arm around his and leaned her head against his shoulder for a second as they started walking up the steps to the museum.

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Fifteen minutes later Uzu led Sauske into the dimly lit gold and red colored room and looked around. "Whoa." Sauske said in awe as he meandered over to a display and started examining the scrolls and ancient texts before moving over to another display and checking out some of the gold, silver and semi precious gems along with the little tags attached to them to tell what they were.

"Holy shit, Uzu. This is amazing!" Sauske said as he cut across the large room and made a beeline for the large silver and gem studded coffin. He stopped next to the coffin and peered inside at the mummy and let out a low whistle and then turned his head and waved excitedly, for her to join him.

Uzu smiled at his antics and walked across the room to the coffin and peeked over the edge at the man inside and blinked in surprise.

Even though she had been given permission to see and handle the mummy, this was the first time that she had actually laid eyes on it. She had expected a semi withered dried up corpse decked out in ceremonial robes or something.

What she was seeing however was completely different.

The mummy man was perfectly preserved, with shocking silver hair, lightly tanned skin, the fallen angel beauty of a warrior from a raunchy romance novel she had at home. He looked young, barely in his mid twenties. He was tall, or at least he would have been standing up. By her calculation he must have been about six foot six in a half, maybe six foot seven inches. His body had wide shoulders, a lean, ripped stomach and was powerfully built.

She imagined that he was once a great fighter, with the sleek grace of an panther.

His clothes were strange. A bizarre combination of camo, and hardened-leather?-armor.

His shirt was dark with elbow length sleeves, the hem falling three inches shy of his belly button, his pants were skin tight black leather that hugged long, muscular legs and he had sandals on his feet. There were black leather, metal, claw tipped gloves on his hands and under his folded hands he had a white and red, snarling-

Was that a wolf mask?

"Wow, this guy must have been a bad ass back in the day." Sauske said in an awed tone as he fished his cell phone out of his pants pocket and started to take a picture of the mummy when Uzu reached up and smacked his hand, startling him enough to cause him to drop his cell phone into the coffin on the mummy's stomach, close to one of his clawed, gloved hands.

Sauske glared at her for a second and gave her a small push as she got an 'oh shit' look on her face and moved a little closer to the coffin and muttered an apology to Sauske as she leaned over the side of the coffin and reached in to get his phone before it damaged the mummy, and yelped and jerked when one of the claws cut her wrist.

"Ow!"

"What's wrong?" Sauske asked as he moved to stand directly behind her.

"One of the claws on mummy man's gloves cut my wrist-" Uzu hissed from between clenched teeth as she turned her arm a little bit to examine the cut and cringed. The cut on her wrist was a lot deeper than she had expected it to be, blood already ran down her palm, to her finger tips, some of the scarlet drop falling onto the mummy's stomach, and clothes as she slowly pushed her self upright and blinked back tears of pain as Sauske grasped her arm just under the cut and pulled her away from the coffin to stand under one of the lights so that she could see how bad the cut was.

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Kakashi could hear voices.

One male and one female.

It had taken him a while to figure out their genders because they had sounded as if they were coming from a great distance, then suddenly they had sounded so much closer. Odd since he couldn't recall anyone getting right up next to him for any reason.

His eyes flickered open for a second as he took several shallow breaths and bit back a hiss when all he could see was an blindingly brilliant light hanging somewhere over his head. He blinked several times, feeling disoriented and wondering if maybe someone had knocked him out for a moment or two as he shifted slightly so that he could push himself upright when the smell of blood hit him.

The slightly sweet, metallic scent tugged at his senses, telling him that the scent was familiar as memories flooded his mind.

Memories of his Kage, and former student, Naruto- Blond hair, deep, _deep_, blue eyes-

Naruto-it was his job to watch over and protect him. If he didn't the village and it's people would die.

The enemy-he couldn't remember much of the enemy. He couldn't recall much of anything except the need to protect Naruto. He pushed himself upright and peeked over the edge of the...whatever the hell he was in and frowned when he caught sight of the gold and red colored walls, little glass cases filled with weapons, and was about to climb out of the-again, whatever the hell he was in. When he heard a sharp feminine yelp and turned his head so that he could see the source and stilled when he saw a young woman who looked exactly like Naruto in his female form standing twenty feet or so from him trying to pull her bloody hand from a raven haired, and ebony eyed young man that looked exactly like-

"Ow! Sauske stop touching it, that hurts!"

Kakashi's eyes narrowed to slits and he saw red.

Sauske-he knew that name. He hated it. Cursed the man with that name every day he got out of bed.

He was a traitor. A monster hell bent on murdering Naruto and everyone else precious to him.

And he was a dead man.


	7. Chapter 7

The little bitch of an Uchiha saw him coming, Kakashi knew this from the way the younger man's attention had shifted from Naruto to him, in the way his face had drained of all color and his dark eyes had widened in shock, awe, and horror as he had slipped an arm around Naruto's slender waist and dragged him/her back with him when he jumped back away from him, as far out of Kakashi's reach as he could while dragging Naruto with him.

Kakashi growled, low in the back of his throat. The sound more animal than man as he moved close to one of the displays and smashed the glass with one of his hands and picked up a shiny silvery black blade that looked as if it had been sharpened just yesterday and gripped it tightly in his hand as he tracked Sauske and his movements as he dragged the struggling woman across the room and shoved her down to the floor behind something, his dark eyes never leaving Kakashi.

"Stay down." Sauske hissed at Uzu as he finally managed to uncurl his fingers from around her arm. Uzu sat on the floor for a second with a confused look on her face, she hadn't seen the man come up out of the coffin and make his way towards them with a murderous expression on his face.

His heart thudded in his chest as he tried to think. Rationally speaking, he knew that it was impossible for a mummy to come back to life. But that didn't stop him from taking a moment to look around for hidden camera's, secretly hoping that he and Uzu were simply being punked.

When he didn't see any hidden camera's a peculiar sense of dread settled in his stomach like a lead weight. He didn't know much of anything about the walking dead aside from what he had seen in movies, and that information wasn't very helpful because it was simply improbable to kill something that was already dead.

Especially if it couldn't feel pain.

The mummy man took several steps forward and Sauske made a low, panicked sound in the back of his throat and stood up while thinking,_ Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god- I'm fucked..._

He gave Uzu one last, quick look. He had to protect her. Whatever else happened, he had to protect Uzu.

Mummy man moved, slowly at first then more quickly, his slow movements blurring as he went faster and started to run at Sauske. Sauske only saw a faint blur of movement. The colors black and silver blending together as the mummy closed in on him.

Sauske waited until he was half way across the room before he took turned and took off running out of the room, and looked back over his shoulder just for a second to see if the undead thing was coming after him.

Again he only saw a blur of black and silver moving behind him, and yelled out to Uzu. "Get out of the museum! Run away!"

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Uzu didn't know what was going on, Sauske's entire demeanor had changed.

He was tense, his face pale, his expression worried. She had been about to ask him what was wrong when she had first noticed the change, but hadn't had the chance too when he had suddenly slipped an arm around her waist and had jumped back a few steps and then started to half drag, half carry her across the floor, his eyes wide, stricken and panicked_ as _he had reached the other side of the room and shoved her down behind one of the heavy wooden bases that held up one of the bigger weapon's displays and hissed at her to 'stay down' before standing back up to his full height and moving away from her.

She blinked at the empty space and mentally went over his sudden change in attitude and was about to come out from her hiding place when she heard Sauske's heavy foot falls as he started running then yelled "Get out of the museum! Run away!" And her heart slammed against her ribs in alarm as she scrambled to her feet and looked around the room just in time to see a black and silver blur chase Sauske out of the room.

"Oh god, Sauske." She breathed as she started running after Sauske and the blur intending to back her friend up if someone had broken into the museum and was at this moment chasing Sauske down to kill him.

She ran as fast as she could in the damn heels that Sauske had bought for her and was about to turn the corner where the dinosaur exhibit was when she heard Sauske scream and her steps faltered for a second as her mind went blank and she rounded the corner and stopped when she saw Sauske half sitting, half leaning side ways against the wall, blood running down his nose, and his chin.

A blade through his left shoulder, dangerously close to his neck, his eyes were closed and his body was twitching and she could hear a gurgling sound coming from somewhere deep in his chest and screamed in horror and moved to see if he was still alive when she caught sight of something moving in the shadows off to her right, out of the corner of her eye a mere moment before a strong steely arm wrapped around her neck and a large hand grasped her wounded arm and she felt a sharp pain in her wrist an instant before her world blurred for a moment as she was forcefully spun around and found herself staring into narrowed mis matched eyes.

One a deep blue, and the other a piercing scarlet red partually hidden by silver hair.


	8. Chapter 8

Mis matched eyes stared at the terrified face of his former student and couldn't help but wonder why Naruto was in his female form, and why he/she looked so damn scared. Didn't Naruto remember him? Or had Sauske trapped him in his female form and sealed away his memories?

Whatever the reason, Kakashi would free him, the copy nin silently vowed as wide teary violet eyes shifted from him to the still figure pinned against the wall as her lips parted slightly and she said the traitors name in such a worried tone, as if his life still meant something to her. As if he hadn't been trying to kill her ever since his defection. Kakashi might have been tempted to throttle her if he hadn't been aware of two things.

1) She was his Kage. And 2) She wasn't acting like herself.

But that wasn't what had his undivided attention right now. Right now what had his undivided attention was her bloody wrist. He had no way of knowing what had cut her so deeply, or if whatever had cut her had been poisoned or not. He gripped her wounded arm, just below her bloody wrist and held her against him as he lifted her arm to examine the wound.

The cut on her wrist was almost four inches in length and ran from the heel of her hand down at a slight angle, and spit her skin _almost_ to the bone. Luckily she hadn't gotten her whole wrist cut or she might have bled to death, but as it was now, he needed to stop the bleeding from her wound then he needed to bandage it-

He felt the fingers of her free hand against his stomach and nearly jumped out of his skin when she slipped her hand lower, his eyes flickered to her face and he frowned when he caught the look of devious determination on her pretty face an instant before her hand curled around his groin and she twisted his balls somehow through his pants.

Sending a sharp painful jolt up his spine causing him to yelp and let go of her and jump back away from her as she reared back her uninjured arm and tried to punch him.

He looked at her through narrowed eyes and growled warningly. He didn't want to hurt her, but if she tried to hit him again, he'd knock her out. He tensed a little bit and took up a defensive stance, expecting her to attack him again and waited.

She cast a glance towards the worthless Uchiha then turned and started running, shocking him a little bit since the Naruto he knew _never_ ran. He dropped the defensive stance and took off after her, intending to catch her before she could hurt herself or him and frowned when she rounded the corner ahead of him and sped up so that he could keep sight of her and started to turn the corner when he was clothes lined by her arm and went down hard.

Uzu had a plan now that she was thinking more clearly after a few seconds of freaking out before.

No one knew the museum like she did. No one knew the lay out, the exhibits and the artifacts like she did. And after seeing what this weird guy had done to Sauske, she was feeling a little blood thirsty and vengeful. She lifted one of her legs intending to bring the heel of her boot down on his throat and collapse his air way, but the bastard managed to shake off her sneak attack just in time to lift his arm and stop her foot.

He kicked out with one leg and knocked her off balance and then grasped the ankle of her raised leg and jerked her down on top of him and rolled them until he was on top of her.

The heavy weight of his body pushing down on her making her frantic to escape as she back handed him as hard as she could to get him to draw back. It didn't work. If anything the move seemed to piss him off. He growled menacingly and grabbed both of her wrists, digging his sharp claw like finger nails into her wounded arm, causing a sharp jolt of pain to shoot up her arm, making her scream as the pain spread through her mind like fire.

Her breath came out in ragged gasps as her eyes teared up and she tried to pull her wrists free of his grasp, but he simply held tighter causing the pain in her arm to morph into a wildfire of agony. Just what the hell was with his grip? And his fingernails?

It was as if he had claws from fingernails-

Uzu went totally still as that thought crossed her mind and glanced up at her assailant. A vague sense of familiarity nagging at her mind. _There was no way in hell that mummies came alive. There was no way in hell that mummies came alive. There was no way- _She stared at the man's face in the dim light and her eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

"W-Wha?" She squeaked as she saw the sinfully beautiful face, and silver hair that belonged to the mummy that she had studied in the coffin a short time ago. She blinked, looked around for a second, looked at him, and blinked again as her mind filled with questions.

What was the mummy man doing out of his coffin? How was he moving? Was he a zombie or something? Why had he attacked Sauske? What was he going to do with her? Was this really happening? It couldn't be, it just wasn't realistic. Was it?

She tugged at her uninjured arm, wanting it free so that she could reach out and feel for a pulse or something, but he growled at her again, his lips peeling back from his teeth as the sound vibrated in his chest, warning her that he wouldn't put up with her striking him again as he loosened his grip on her a little bit and without letting go of her, allowed her to lift her hand and place it against his chest and jerked back when she felt the warmth of his body heat under his clothes and armor.

"Jesus Christ!" She nearly shrieked as she stared up at the mummy in wide eyed shock.


	9. Chapter 9

"Y-You're alive?" Uzu asked the mummy man as she lifted her arm and again put her hand against his chest and sort of patted the hard muscle under his shirt then shifted her hand so that it rested against his collar bone, her fingers brushing the pulse point in his neck almost curiously. The mummy's fingers tightened around her wrist a little bit as his eyes narrowed and she let out a small hysterical laugh and let her hand slide up his neck to his cheek and traced the scar running along his left eye lid (the same scar that she hadn't noticed before because of his hair being in the way) and then let her hand drop back to her side as she tried to think.

This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't. Logic dictated that dead men didn't get up and walk around.

But she could_ feel_ him.

His warmth, the strength of his grip on her wrist, the weight of his body. It was all solid, heavy, firm... And it was absolutely without a doubt,_ real_.

And she didn't know what to do. She was torn between having a good long freak out and checking herself into the local hospital for her mental health.

She was quiet for a moment or so, then reached up again and poked him in the chest with her index finger, experimentally and nearly jumped out of her skin when he let go of her wounded arm and slapped her hand away lightly and gave her an irritated look. "Okay, okay I get it. You don't like being poked..."

Kakashi knew that she no longer wished to fight him the second she had gotten that bizarre wide eyed, shocked expression on her pretty face. But just the same he had decided to maintain his hold on her just to be on the safe side. His cheek still stung from where she had back handed him as he watched her. Wondering what she was up too.

Her curious expression puzzled him as she flattened one delicate palm against his chest, dead center over his heart for a second.

Her shocked expression changing to one of awe as she slipped her hand up to the hollow of his throat and lightly touched the skin over his pulse and laughed a little hysterically, worrying him for a second before she seemed to calm herself and then lifted her hand and ran her fingers along his scarred eye causing the skin to tingle under her finger tips before she dropped her hand again.

And lay there for a moment or two with a genuinely confused look on her face before she lifted her hand again and poked him in the chest.

Irritated he let go of her wounded wrist and smacked her hand away and gave her an irritated look. Wondering if she was remembering him yet. He actions bespoke familiarity, but her expression told him that she still didn't know him.

It was vexing. But he was happy that she no longer wanted to fight him as she reached up again and gently pushed against him, trying to get him to move.

Damn but the man was heavy for a mummy. She had been pushing against him for the past minute or so and he didn't even budge. "Come on. Get off. I have to go check on Sauske." He stared at her for a second longer then shifted back away from her to allow her up, without letting go of her other wrist and let her sit up before he got to his feet and sort of dragged her up along with him.

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Sorry that the chapters are so short. I'm still feeling bad and my head still hurts.

But at least I'm working on them...


	10. Chapter 10

He expected her to try and run away from him again, and was pleasantly suprised when she merely tugged on his arm a little bit and started walking. Curious to know where she was going, Kakashi fell into step behind her, his grip on her wrist never loosening as he followed her back the way that they had come and let her go when he caught the pained look on her face when they reached the spot where Sauske was.

He let her go over to Sauske and watched her as she dropped to her knees next to him and felt for a pulse. Kakashi's clawed fingers twitched a little bit in response. He hadn't killed the bastard yet. Had figured that a quick and painless death was too good for him.

And couldn't help but still think that as Naruto slipped her hand in Sauske's and pushed his dark hair back from his pale bloody face. It_ irked _the copy nin that after all this time, after every damn thing that Sauske had done to Naruto. All the pain. All the suffering. Every attempt to kill her, he still got such loyalty and kindness from her.

He waited a moment or so, letting her say goodbye to him before Kakashi would drag her from this place kicking and screaming if he had too, and leave the Uchiha to his fate to bleed out in this strange place surrounded by relics of the past.

Uzu could feel Sauske's pulse under her finger tips, it was weak, thready, but it was there. So there was still time to call for help. It was good to know, but at the same time she couldn't exactly turn in the mummy man. He'd probably go ballistic and hurt a bunch of people if the cops tried to cuff him and shove him in the back of a car. Which meant that she had to partially cover up his mess while trying to protect Sauske from him.

_Okay. I can do this._ Uzu thought as she slowly slipped her hand from Sauske's and stood up and turned and looked at the mummy man-

God what she wouldn't give to know his name. It was damned confusing to keep thinking of him as the 'mummy man' even if that was what he was. "I need to get my...cell..." It was a lie of course. She had her cell on her, she just didn't think it wise to use it to call for help. She'd use her office phone to call for help, then she would take the mummy-dammit she needed to call him something better than that-the man was a fucking medical marvel.

Kakashi looked at her, his expression blank. He had no idea what Naruto was saying to him, the language she was speaking was strange. But he more or less got the gist of what she was saying when she reached out and took his hand and tugged on his arm like she had before and started to run. He understood this action very easily. Understood the urgency behind it.

They couldn't very well be found with Sauske's corpse, there would be too many questions and it would get them into trouble with the village.

He ran beside her, turning when she turned, and frowned when she stopped outside of a door with big black and gold letters on it and glanced at her as she let go of his hand and opened the door and walked inside, leaving him in the doorway to look around the office like room as she walked over ot the desk in the middle of it and picked something up and placed it against her ear.

His eyes narrowed for a second. That thing she was holding looked suspiciously like a radio of some sort. Was she going to contact the others to have them meet them in a particular place after they left here? She looked at him and gave him a tight lipped smile than made him frown again as she started speaking to someone over the radio, five minutes later she put the radio down and grabbed his hand again and ran out of the room and back down the hall, past Sauske, and further until they reached a huge glass wall.

She let go of his hand again and opened another door, this one different form the other, and slipped inside and leaned over a key board as he peeked in and looked around. His eyes automatically drawn to the small screens attached to the wall before he made a hissing sound that drew her attention to him for a second before she started to type in something again.

It took him a moment to realise that they were standing in a surveillance room and she was using what knowledge she had to erase the video's of them. But she was taking too long. He made an irritated sound and walked up behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist.

Causing her to jump a little bit as he pulled her back away from the computers and then shoved his free hand through the top of the machine and ripped out a few wires and other things then tossed the sparking things aside and pulled her along back out into the hall way then followed her back to the back of the building and out into the night.


	11. Chapter 11

Kakashi stared at the strange yellow thing that Naruto had just climbed into with a good amount of trepidation, fear, and doubt.

He did not know what that thing was, but he was _not_ getting inside of it. It looked like a bizarre combination of a carriage, and a machine. The bright yellow paint on the thing was blindingly bright, and the smell and sound of it-

Both were horrible!

It smelled like a combination of piss, vomit, sweat, sex and leather.

And the sound it was making- a strange rumbling purr that make Kakashi's ears feel as if they were bleeding.

Not in the least pleasant. Not in the least inviting.

Why the hell was Naruto in there anyways? He wondered as the thing made another, louder purring sound that caused his fingers to twitch madly. He was tempted to reach up and put his finger tips to his ears and see if they came away bloody, but there was nothing wrong with his ears as of yet.

He could tell because he could hear _sound_.

Naruto said something to the beast making it purr louder, if that was even possible, then turned herself around and looked at him expectantly. He stared back at her, silently trying to will her out of there before he broke down and gave in to her will.

But for the moment he wanted nothing more than to shake his head no and tell her to come out and took a sub conscious step back away from the beast as she spoke to him in that strange language of that she suddenly seemed to know. And he could swear that for a moment he actually understood what she was saying, and it made him slowly shake his head no.

She repeated the words three times. Each time her voice was tinged with irritation, until finally after the third try she made an impressive growling sound and climbed out of the beast-

He sighed in relief as she stood up and walked over to him. He was suddenly very happy that she had been the first to give in.

_He did not_ want to climb into that thing for any reason, period. He relaxed a little bit as she walked up to him and smiled at him pleasantly before reaching up and grabbing him by the ear, stunning him as she twisted and sent a sharp burning pain through him.

He yelped and grasped her wrist as she started to pull him towards the beast and tried to pry her fingers from his ear, but it hurt so much! His eyes teared up and he snapped and growled and swore that he'd get her for this up until she finally let go of his ear and placed her hand on the back of his head and forced him, head first into the beast then before he could react, sat down of his back and hooked an arm up under his legs and forced them to bend as he tried to buck her off of him and kicked his feet.

And stopped cold when he heard a slamming sound that simply had him freezing in mid struggle an instant before she said something to the beast again and the damn thing started forward with a violent lurch nearly causing him to fall off of the little ledge/seat that he was laying face down across.

He made a strange sound-a weak, pathetic, panicked whimpering sound and buried his face against the ledge/seat and tried not to let his fear rule his mind. If he did there was no telling what would happen if they were attacked.

And he had to protect Naruto above _all _other things!

He felt slender fingers slide through the downy soft silver hair at the nape of his neck and shivered as he twisted his head around to look at Naruto. She had such a solemn look on her pretty face, her eyes looked at him worriedly.

_She knew that he was scared._ He realised after a moment or so. Her expression had always been telling.

And he felt just a little bit ashamed of that fact since he had never been afraid of anything before. Or if he had been, he had never showed it. He had always been calm, cool and level headed no matter what had happened. So why was it so hard for him to be that way now?

He didn't understand. But she obviously did. He could see it in her eyes as she ran her fingers through his hair in a soothing fashion, trying to calm his welling panic so that he wouldn't feel so afraid. He had expected to see disgust or censure on her expression upon having him show his weakness, but from what he could see of her, she didn't look disgusted, or disappointed.

If anything she looked compassionate. A far cry from the person who had nearly pulled his ear off a few seconds ago and more like the Naruto he used to know.

Which was why he attempted to settle himself down so that he wouldn't make her worry further.

He took several deep shuttering breaths, trying hard to banish the fear circulating through his system and closed his eye and waited.

Ten minutes later, the strange beast stopped moving and Naruto leaned over him a little bit and opened the side and lifted herself off of him so that he could scramble out of the beast's body before it decided to eat them and run again and slowly climbed out of the thing behind him as he lay on the grass covered ground shaking a little bit as he heard that slamming sound again and turned his head a little bit to look for Naruto.

Hoping that she still wasn't inside of that horrible, horrible beast. He was relieved to see her when she dropped down to one knee next to him and said something to him again as she lightly brushed his silver hair back from his face. Gods he wished he knew what she was saying...

But he didn't really need to understand what she was saying to understand her tone. She was speaking to him in soft, soothing tones, meaning that she was trying to make him feel better. Maybe by saying something like, _"It's okay Kakashi, I won't let anything happen to you."_


	12. Chapter 12

Uzu wasn't sure why she bothered talking to the mummy man, he didn't seem to understand a damn word that she was saying.

Which was part of the reason why she had had to drag him inside of the taxi she had hailed. The other part of the reason was because he had _never_ seen a taxi before and was scared of the vehicle. And while she hadn't meant to scare him, or even hurt him to get him inside, she had felt that there was simply no other choice but to quickly get him inside and away from the museum before the ambulance and the police pulled up.

Because nothing screamed '_suspicious person_' like a foreign guy with silver hair decked out in black clothes with bloody armor and hands, standing directly under a street light. And since she couldn't take the chance with her mummy being arrested for the attempted murder of her best friend, and she simply couldn't let him wander around aimlessly (honestly he might get mugged or something) she had felt that it would be much better to take him to her place and sort of hide him there.

After all no one knew more about the ancient world than she did. She might not be able to communicate with him, but she understood that waking up in a strange place, possibly with no memory of how one got there; could be a little bit disorienting and frustrating.

He had probably attacked Sauske thinking that he was protecting his home. That was a normal reaction to seeing a stranger. Even after waking up in a strange place.

Everyone suffered those impulses. It didn't mean that he was a bad person or usually violent.

And the fact that he hadn't attacked or hurt her made it safe for her to assume that he maybe thought that she was someone that he had to protect, and was therefore no threat to her.

Which was part of the reason she chose to take him to her place. The other reasons were simple enough.

1) It was a little ways outside the city in an area that had very little traffic. So the sounds and sights of the cars from the city wouldn't bother him.

2) Her place was a cozy two story colonial house with eight large bedrooms, three spacious bathrooms, a dining room, a nice kitchen, a large living room, a study full of ancient artifacts that were also family heirlooms (like the house).

And 3) She had over fifteen miles of land (also sort of a family heirloom) that had a lot of woods with pretty area's with ponds and streams and wild life. The borders of her lands had tall electrified fences to keep intruders out.

They would have total privacy so that her mummy man could take time to adjust to his new surroundings.

And while she was shut up with him she could take the time to try and teach him how to speak so that she could understand him, or even teach him sign language so that they could communicate. And she would also be able to observe his normal relaxed behavior.

Something that her boss's and the other history buff big wigs she worked for would give their left arm and leg to do.

His hand reached up and grasped her fingers, jolting her out of her thoughts and reminding her that he was_ right_ there and was apparently feeling_ much_ better after his harrowing taxi ride. His grasp on her fingers stopped their slow movement through his thick silver hair as he sat back on his heels and tipped his head back and took a deep calm breath as he squeezed her fingers gently then let her hand go as he stood up.

"Feeling better big guy?" She asked in a bemused tone of voice as he stood at his full height, towering over her. His face still a little bit pale. Uzu reached out her hand and waited patiently for him to take it and felt her lips twitch a little bit as his big hand carefully closed around her smaller one. His grip was light and gentle, yet firm as he waited for her to say or do something.

Uzu mentally went over a list of things she would probably do first if she were in his place.

1) She would eat and drink something.

The reason for this was simple. Whatever had been keeping him alive and well up until now, may stop working soon if it wasn't already not working. And he would need the food and water to keep his body running and healthy.

Or at least this is what she theorized to be true since his body wasn't breaking apart and turning to dust in front of her very eyes.

2) Once that need was met to satisfaction, she would probably end up going to taking a shower to get comfortable.

3)After that she would probably go to sleep. Not for long, maybe an hour or two.

The need to get up and move around after several hundred years of stillness would make her act like a kid with mega ADD. She would pace, she would run, she would jump around in place or _all_ over the place. She would race herself back and forth. She would do cartwheels. She would probably do anything to keep her joints from becoming stiff.

4) She would most likely be curious and a little bit scared of, and about everything that she had never seen before. She would take things apart, study it's insides and then put it back together and if anything sparked at her...she'd throw it against the wall and laugh like a lunatic for killing the evil sparking thingy.

5) The new clothes that she was forced to wear might be uncomfortable and itchy...

So she probably shouldn't be terribly surprised (or shocked, or stunned, or embarrassed) if the mummy man decided to run around in nothing at all for a while.

"Okay big guy, follow me and try not to get lost okay." Uzu said cheerfully as a sort of funny thought occurred to her that a little bunny might startle him and causing him to pick her up and run like hell through the woods. And although it was a totally stupid and irrational thought.

She also knew that if that happened they would both probably die of exposure since she had no sense of direction what so ever and wouldn't be able to lead them out of the woods safely.

He nodded his head at her words, as if agreeing that he wouldn't get lost while he was with her and let her start to lead him up the long dirt road that disappeared into some woods.


	13. Chapter 13

Uzu staggered through the front door of her home panting, her clothes torn and a little bit bloody from where she had gotten stuck in that stupid frigging thorn patch a little while back, and just let herself collapse right there in the door way.

_Jesus goddamn Christ-_ She couldn't believe that she had gotten lost in her own front yard. Nor could she really believe how handy her mummy-er companion had been. He'd extracted her from more thorn bushes, and saved her from a pack of coyotes, and from having a bat in her hair, and from falling into a stream...

Honestly if it hadn't been for the mummy man she might have actually _died_ tangled in the weeds in her front yard. And how pathetic would that have been? Still, now that she was home she was ready to call it a night.

She didn't care if she was laying on the cold tile floor of her home, or that the mummy man would have the run of the place until she decided to get up. Surviving in the wilderness without any survival skills was damned tiring.

If she was a lucky woman, she could stay in her house for the rest of her life and never have to step foot outside again. But she wasn't really a lucky woman. And she knew that she couldn't hide herself in her home for the rest of her life. It was just that the idea was very, very, _very_ appealing to her at the moment.

She felt the mummy man step over her and couldn't help but twitch and hide her face as if she were expecting him to step on her. For all she knew he was going to step on her. And she simply didn't have the strength left to move herself out of the way.

She needn't have wasted any energy moving at all. He stepped over her and then dropped down to one knee and grasped the back of her shirt and sort of lifted her up a little bit then stood up and dragged her a little further into the house and then lowered her to the floor again and moved to close the door while she lifted her head slightly to see what he was doing.

Hn. She hadn't known that ancient guys had such manners. _That_ would definitely be something to write about in her journal if she could manage to get herself up. Which probably wouldn't happen for a while since she was nice and comfortable on the floor.

The man shut the door and messed with the bolt lock for several seconds before figuring out how to lock the door then made his way back over to her and knelt down next to her and said something that sounded suspiciously like Japanese for, _"Are you alright?"_

Uzu blinked up at him, wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her. But he spoke again, his voice low and rough from disuse._ "Are you alright?"_ She blinked again as it slowly seeped into her mind that she really could understand him and she jerked herself upright so quickly that she almost butted heads with him.

"Oh! I can understand what your saying!" She sounded so shocked that she could understand him, that she couldn't help but think that maybe she was an idiot or something for not thinking of speaking Japanese before now.

He gave her a bored look, still unable to understand a word that she was saying, but from the look on her face; it seemed that she could understand _him_. He reached up and rubbed the nape of his neck with his clawed finger tips and silently called himself an idiot for not thinking to try speaking earlier. But in his defense, his throat really, really hurt.

Honestly his voice box felt as if it had rusted or something, and the fact that his throat was sore didn't help things much.

She spoke to him then, in Japanese. Asking him if he could understand her if she spoke this language and he nodded his head. Of course he could understand her when she spoke in a familiar language. To be honest he wondered why she hadn't tried to speak to him in Japanese before now.

He sort of scrunched up his nose and made a grunting sound.

Maybe they were _both_ idiots.

"Can you tell me your name? How old you are? What you did for a living-" She paused for a second when he gave her a startled/questioning look before frowning at her and leaning in a little bit and asking.

"You already know who I am. My age _and_ what I do for a living. Tell me, did you suffer a head wound or something? Is that why you seem so forgetful?"

She opened her mouth to deny everything but stopped herself when she realized that he must think that he _knew_ her. And telling him that she wasn't the person that he believed her to be could be a problem for her considering how he had attacked Sauske. She'd have to play semi dumb for the time being or he might react violently to her once she told him the truth. "Uh...yeah. A head wound. you know me, I'm always tripping over my own feet and stuff."

The mummy man sighed and reached out and patted her on the head with one claw tipped hand and smiled faintly. "That's okay Naruto. Even if you don't remember who you are, I do. I'll take care of you so don't trip and hit your head anymore."

Uzu frowned a little bit as he called her Naruto and wondered if he had some how known her great, great, great, _great_ grandpa Naruto. And mentally went over what little bit she knew about her great (several greats later) grandpa.

She knew that he had lived in a country similar to New Zealand, it had been surrounded by tropical land, rainy land, a dessert exct... that had been located off of the coast of japan close to eight hundred years ago before half of the continent had sank into the ocean.

He been orphaned in a natural disaster that had nearly destroyed his home village as a child. And had grown up learning guerrilla war fare. He'd been an assassin and soldier during times of great strife and had inevitably become the leader of his village.

He had lived a fairly productive life, becoming a living legend among his own people, marrying and had several children and later on grandchildren; before dying at the ripe old age of one hundred and eleven.

There were books and statues in several different countries telling of his adventures.

Many of them she had managed to get her hands on along with actual artifacts that had once belonged to him. A red and orange silk long jacket with a flame like design at the bottom, along the hem. A piece of steel with a strange swirling design etched into it. Several journals that he had written in his own hands.

Scrolls. Money. Jewels.

She had paintings of what was supposed to be his wife and kids likenesses. But they all looked like ink paintings to her.

She also had a record of every child and grand child that had been born to his blood line, that spanned close to five hundred generations.


	14. Chapter 14

With the language barrier broken, Uzu used her knowledge of the Japanese language and the fact that the mummy man thought she was someone that he knew, to shamelessly question him. Her curiosity often getting the best of her.

She started with small stuff. Asking him to _remind_ her what his name, age and occupation had been. And had been literally shocked speechless to learn that he was not only an assassin/soldier like her great, great-grandpa had been. But he was the baddest of the bad.

The legendary-yes _legendary_-assassin the White Fang himself. She'd heard so many stories about him from other historians, and had been so giddy and excited that she had almost had an orgasm right there on the floor in front of him.

She learned that he was twenty six, or at least he had been seven hundred odd years ago. And that his hair being silver was an inherited trait that usually threw people when they looked at him because he was such a young and drop dead gorgeous man, that anyone would feel just a little bit confused when they saw the color of his hair.

She learned that he had been with his village leader, trying to suppress enemy forces (meaning that he had been on the front lines of a war) when something had happened and...he didn't remember anything but a brilliant flash of light and thinking the thought that the world had ended.

He seemed paler than he had been a short time ago, his body shaking slightly and she decided to curb her curiosity until he was better able to tell her things without feeling so upset. She reached out and grasped his clawed hands in her own and just held them, not really knowing what else to do for him except let him know that she was there and he was safe now.

It took a few minutes, but he seemed to pull himself together enough for her to ask him if he would like to eat and drink something and then go to bed.

She had expected him to eat something, and had nearly fainted when he had eaten what she had put in front of him before going over to her fridge and started to systematically go through the drawers and shelves, eating everything that he could get his hands on before opening her freezer and starting to chew on the frozen foods before rounding off his meal with nine jugs of juice, four gallons of water, and three large bottles of soda before he pretty much collapsed against the cabinets across from her fridge and lay there with his eyes closed.

Little pieces of frozen chicken and beef sticking to his chin and cheeks.

She tip toed around him, checking out the damage that he had done to her food supply and estimated that he had just eaten three hundred and sixty dollars worth of food. The same food that had been meant to last her for the next three months.

Which meant that she would have to go grocery shopping sometime tomorrow. She looked down at him and watching his body twitch a little bit before he started snoring softly and felt the nearly overwhelming urge to kick him in the leg or something. But figured that she would have to hold off on kicking him until she was sure that he wouldn't expire from food poisoning or something since he had eaten a lot of her frozen foods.

She closed the fridge and kicked some of the food remains out of the way and sat down on the floor across from him and watched him until her eyes had grown so heavy that she simply couldn't keep them open anymore and she fell asleep.


	15. Chapter 15

Kakashi's eyes opened again sometime around eight forty five the next morning when the crick in his neck finally became too painful for him to ignore. He shifted slightly, his back and shoulders aching until he managed to pop his back as he looked around the room.

Vague memories of late yesterday evening flashed through his head.

He'd found Naruto. He'd attacked Sauske. Naruto had dragged him into some weird yellow beast. Then she'd gotten them both lost- He had to fight back the urge to snicker and shake his head. Gods, he didn't understand how Naruto had managed to live without him around to save her all the time. She was just so _pitiful_. Reminding him of her genin days before she had made herself something great.

Of course the fact that she seemed pitiful to him may have something to do with the fact that she couldn't remember him or anything. Something that he doubted was her _fault_ since she could have sustained severe injuries during the war.

He yawned, then stopped when he tasted something odd in his mouth and looked around again.

He hadn't noticed the food strewn about the floor. At first glance all he had really noticed was the white marble counter tops, cherry wood cabinets, a sleek silvery colored fridge and on the floor...in front of the fridge lay his Kage, curled up on her side sound asleep.

He reached up and rubbed the nape of his neck and wondered if he should wake her before deciding to clean up the mess that he had made then explore a little bit.

The garbage can was fairly easy to find since he could smell it. And once he had it he started picking up the fruit and vegetable cores, the scattered bones picked clean of their meat, the empty jugs. And finally once he was done he set the garbage can out of the way and walked out of the room to go exploring.

Two hours later-

He was lost. Thoroughly and hopelessly lost.

He looked to his left, noting that there was nothing but doors that way. Then to his right, noting that there was nothing but doors that way too. And made a small sound of frustration. What the hell was Naruto doing living in a place like this? It was huge!

Mind _bogglingly-shockingly-super_ _size_ huge!

There was enough room in this place for a good number of villagers and their families to live. How the hell did Naruto find her way around this place? He'd been going in circles for what seemed like forever just trying to find his way back to Naruto.

He had started to worry that she would wake up and think he had left or something. Now however, he was deathly afraid that she would come looking for him and get lost in this-this labyrinth. Which was why he was trying so hard to find his way back.

Uzu had woken up alone in her kitchen floor and had automatically thought that Kakashi had turned to dust or something. But since there had been an amazing lack of dust surrounded by armor and leather with little silver hairs sticking out of the top, then she had figured that if he wasn't in the kitchen then he must have cleaned up his mess from last night and gone exploring.

Her first stop had been the front door, checking to make sure that it was still locked although logically speaking that didn't tell her whether or not he had gone outside. She was banking on the fact that he would want to explore the house before he even thought of conquering the great outdoors _again _after last night's trek through the untamed wilds of her front yard.

She walked away from the door and started down the hall, systematically checking every room and bathroom (god she hoped that if he was holed up in one of the bathrooms that he had the common sense to lock the door. She may be fascinated by him, but she doubted that she'd be fascinated by how a seven hundred and twenty six year old man used the potty) and slowly made her way up the stairs and finally found him wandering around.

"Kakashi."

He stopped walking in mid step and turned to look at her and had the most bizarre combination of relief/horror of his face as he ran to her and wrapped his arms around her and started babbling about being lost and thinking that he'd never see her again and then said something along the lines of, "Oh gods, now we'll both be wandering around this place until hell freezes over."

She sighed and patted him on the back a few times and wondered how she was supposed to react to his reaction to her home. On one hand she felt slightly irritated that he would get lost so easily in the 'hall of illusion' as she called it because of the upstairs unusual lay out that made the halls always seem _longer_ than they actually were. Couple that with the fact that the lay out of the bedrooms and such were back to back and side to side forming a large square like circle, and the fact that you could easily get confused and turned around and you had one hell of a tripy walk ahead of you.

So it was understandable that he would have gotten lost.

And on the other hand he made her feel badly for not warning him about the upstairs lay out. Which in itself was irritating as hell and she felt torn between leaving him there to wander around aimlessly for the next few hours and getting him back downstairs where he would probably feel less distressed.

But first thing was first. She was going to give Kakashi a shower.


	16. Chapter 16

Kakashi stared at Naruto with a puzzled scowl on his face as she leaned over a little bit and put her hand under the water to test the temperature. His eyes never looking away from the scandalous little top that just barely covered her breasts in the front and was nothing more than tightly knotted ribbons in the back. He crossed his arms over his chest and tried to resist the urge to reach out and _tug_ on one of the ribbons, just to see what happened.

Although he could pretty much imagine what would happen. Still... his curiosity was slowly but surly getting the best of him.

Just what the hell did she think that she was doing wearing such a thing with a pair of really, _really_ high cut shorts? Was she trying to _upset_ him? Because if so, then she was doing a great job of it. His temper was rising a little more every second he spent staring at her.

She leaned back and then turned to him and reached out to unbuckle his breast plate and he automatically smacked her delicate little hands away and glared at her. What game was she playing? He wondered as she looked up at him.

"What's wrong?" She asked the question so innocently. It sort of pissed him off even more.

He let his mis matched eyes drift down from her face to her breasts. Giving her the most pointed look that he could. He didn't want to resort to actually _copping_ a feel unless she just didn't get the point of his stare. "What are you wearing?" He finally asked, his voice low and growling.

She blinked at him then looked down at herself in obvious confusion. She hadn't been sure what she should wear to give him a bath. All she had known was that she didn't want to get her normal clothes wet.

Because wet clothes were uncomfortable. So she had picked something that she had felt would be a bit more comfortable. A lavender bikini top and a pair of shorts that she normally wore during the summer.

She didn't think it was an indecent outfit or anything. After all, everything was _covered_. But the irritated look on Kakashi's face made her feel incredibly self conscious about her body. "It's a- I'm wearing- Stop staring at my breasts-" She said as she put her arms over her chest in an effort to hide herself. "I'm wearing this so that I can give you a bath." Kakashi's irritated look vanished for a second and he frowned and awkwardly lifted one arm and took a small sniff and cringed.

Wow, his current scent was strong enough to nearly make his eyes tear up. The strong scent of sweat, dirt and leather mixed together, saturated his skin.

It was just _horrible_.

He put his arm down and unfastened one of the buckles holding his breast plate in place then quickly unbuckled the other and slipped the thing over his head then grabbed the hem of his shirt and jerked it up over his head too, making sure that he held his breath until his face was clear of the rancid material then dropped it onto the floor next to his breast plate. His eye flickered to Naruto's face and noted the slightly wounded look she wore and sighed.

He hadn't meant to be a bastard about what she was wearing, he had simply thought-

Wait. What had he _thought_ exactly? There had been a reason why he had been so irritated by what she was wearing wasn't there?

_It's because your old fashioned. You've always been a firm believer in no clothes coming off until 1) You've found the woman that you intend to marry. Or 2) The world is ending and you decide to have one last go before you die. _

Kakashi looked around the room and scrunched up his nose a little bit. To his knowledge the world wasn't ending. So what the hell was he doing stripping in front of this woman? Even if this woman had at one point been a guy, and his former student, and...well, she was still his Kage so he wasn't sure why he had bothered to add _that_ to his list.

Still this situation was terribly embarrassing for him. Which was what prompted him to slip an arm around her waist and pick her up and carry her out of the room and then set her down and quickly run back into the bathroom and closed the door and fiddled with the lock until he was sure that the door was locked then leaned his back against the door and looked over at the odd looking shower and sighed.


	17. Chapter 17

Then next day-

Kakashi's first trip out of the house that he and Naruto were staying in was both a harrowing (due to the fact that Naruto had dragged him into the belly of another beast. This time it had been black, hadn't smelled badly; yet he had despised it all the same and would have tried to jump out of it if the woman hadn't have tied him to his seat in the most _uncomfortable_ of fashions) and a little bit of a novel experience since they had wound up going clothes shopping in a store that he had ever knew existed.

Honestly the second he'd stepped foot through the door, he'd nearly died of a heart attack. There had been so many people! And the store itself was a huge, huge indoor market. Naruto walked up behind him and attached something to his wrist.

Curious to see what it was that she had slipped on him, he glanced down and scowled a little bit at the dark blue cord with two medium sized silver bells on it. And followed the length of cording hanging from his wrist all the way back to Naruto who had the other end attached to her belt.

What the hell was she making him wear a leash for? He wondered irritably as he experimentally tugged at the cord to see what she would do. She looked at him, then reached out and smacked his hand, forcing his arm down as she gave him a dirty look then growled, "_Don't you dare do anything to get lost or I'm leaving you here._"

He stared at her for a second or so longer. Silently debating with himself about why she was treating him like he was two, then sighed, knowing now what the cord was for and _why_ he shouldn't remove it. Not that he had been going to remove it anyways. He'd never been in a store this big and found it perfectly understandable that she would do something to help her keep track of him.

If their roles had been reversed, he'd probably have done the same thing.

She started walking and he quietly slipped into step behind her. Observing the way that she navigated through the crowd and doing the same himself. They walked for several minutes before Kakashi noticed that she kept looking at the front windows of certain shops before stopping in front of one with a cream colored suite with a silver and sapphire blue striped tie then looked at him. He shook his head slowly, a feeling of dread settling in his stomach.

It wasn't that he didn't think the suit was nice, it was just that he wasn't a suite kind of guy. He was more the...mask and turtle neck sort of- _Oh dear god she's going to drag me into the store!_

He thought in a little bit of a panic as he turned to try and run completely forgetting the little cord around his wrist would prevent escape. As she caught him by the hair and kicked his feet out from under him and dragged him into the store snapping and snarling and growling curses and threats in every other breath as he tried not to let the fact that she was dragging him by his hair, and was sort of hurting him, cause him to whimper or whine.

He was a man after all.

Uzu didn't think that she was asking for much when she had gotten out of bed this morning. A quiet day to pay some of her bills and do some grocery shopping and maybe do some online clothes shopping for Kakashi followed by a late lunch and some light reading.

That was all she had wanted out of her day. She would have been happy with that.

But then the_ dumb-ass_ _mummy man_ had to find, get his hands on and decide to take her computer apart... Effectively killing her good mood as well as her computer. It wasn't that she didn't understand his reasons for taking her computer apart. She did.

She understood all too well that it was a fascinating piece of machinery and had probably made Kakashi incredibly curious. But she had just _wished_ that he had not touched it until she had finished using it.

But since he had killed it. She'd had no choice but to drag him out of the house this morning kicking and screaming like a frightened child, toss him in her car, and hog tie him to keep him from jumping out of the vehicle while it had been moving and drag him to the local mall.

She _hated_ the mall with a passion that could make Lex Luthor's unhealthy obsession/desire to destroy Superman look like _love_ in comparison. So naturally her already bad mood was made considerably worse. But logically she acknowledged that he couldn't run around in Sauske's clothes all the time.

Sauske might want his clothes- Back at some point. And if Kakashi kept breaking her things; like her cell phone, her TV, her antique one of a kind, cannot be replaced old record player, her microwave, ect.

Then she was going to _murder_ the man. She knew this because she had already developed a little bit of a taste for his blood when she had dragged him out of the house this morning.

She glanced over her shoulder at him and noted that he was rubbing the back of his head and sort of shooting mean looks at her back, obviously unhappy with her for pulling his hair.

She sighed and turned around and he jumped a little bit in his seat as she bent down and ran her fingers through the hair at the back of his head, checking to make sure that she hadn't pulled any out. She hadn't meant to be so rough with him, and now that she really thought about it, she'd been way out of line when she had dragged him into the store by his hair.

"I'm sorry Kakashi. I shouldn't have done that-" He gave her a suspicious look but other wise said nothing. He just tensed a little bit and waited for her to do something new and potentially harmful to him despite the fact that she knew that he wasn't normally the type of person to let another abuse him even a little bit _without_ retaliation. "Just...try the clothes on and if you don't want them then I'll let you pick the next five stores we go too and I'll make up for pulling your hair by buying you something of your choice _and_ cooking your favorite food for dinner. Okay?" Uzu said in a soft apologetic tone.

Kakashi mulled over her words and curtly nodded his head.


	18. Chapter 18

Uzu was starting to regret her promise to Kakashi after he made her get a very_ loud_ and _obnoxious_ sounding toy that closely resembled a monkey with symbols. Only this toy was a wind up bear with what looked like frigging frying pans.

She wasn't stupid, she knew that he was sort of paying her back for pulling his hair and treating him so roughly while they had been shopping at the mall. And she was doing her best not to lose her temper again.

But it was so_ hard_.

They were in her car, driving back to her place, so there was no where for her to run too or hide as Kakashi picked up the toy sitting in his lap and wound it up then set it down and smiled innocently at her when the toy started to bang it's pans together.

**_BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG!_**

Her head started to ache and she sighed tiredly as Kakashi sort of did this wiggling motion in his seat and clapped his hands together like a child. He was messing with her. She could sense it, and if her head hadn't started to hurt so much she would have found her current situation _hilariously_ funny.

After all, what sane person could say that they were sitting next to a seven hundred year old man having him trying to play a joke on them by pretending to be amused by a child's toy? She'd bet that there wasn't anyone in the world who could say that aside from her.

The toy stopped banging it's pans together and she sighed again, this time in relief as Kakashi snickered in the seat next to her. His mismatched eyes never leaving her face as he picked up the toy to wind it up again only to be stopped when she quickly reached over hand pushed his hands and the toy back down.

"My head is starting to hurt Kakashi." She said in a bemused tone before he gave her an evil grin and wound the toy up again before she could so much as protest.

**_BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG! _**

_Oh you sorry bastard._ Uzu thought darkly as she gripped the steering wheel and gritted her teeth as she wondered if she could get away with throwing the toy out of the window. She went to reach for it and Kakashi cut her off but hugging the toy to his chest and glaring at her. Ah. So that was the way that he wanted to play this game.

Well if that was the case she couldn't exactly be held responsible for what she might do to him.

He snickered, announcing his intention to wind the toy up again. "I swear to god Kakashi if you wind that toy up one more time. I'm going to run you're side of the car into a telephone poll.**_" _**Everything was silent for several minutes and she gradually started to relax when all of a sudden she heard the crank being turned and then-

**_BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG! _**

Uzu snarled something under her breath and jerked the wheel to the left, hard and grinned maniacally when the car ended up running dangerously low to the bottom of the ditch, almost on it's right side, causing Kakashi to yelp loudly in alarm and drop the toy in the floor in his mad scramble to climb over the front seat.

Somehow managing to escape from the intricate knot that she had tied his seat belt in so that he couldn't jump from the vehicle. She snickered softly and righted the vehicle, pulling it from the ditch and then glancing over her shoulder at Kakashi who had all but wedged himself in the small area between the rear window and the back seat looking like he was about to cry.

_Oooh_. She thought excitedly. The wheels in her mind turning a mile a minute. Now that she knew his weakness she had a weapon to use against him the next time he pissed her off.

And she was going to plan_ soooo_ many road trips.


	19. Chapter 19

The second that they were back at the house, Kakashi spent ten seconds flopping around her back seat before he managed to open one of the car doors and bolted out of the car like he was utterly terrified that something else might happen. Leaving her to unload the clothes and groceries out of the car.

Not that she minded much since it was probably the only time in the next few hours that would be totally quiet. Once everything was indoors, she put the perishables away, grabbed a couple of Asprin and took them before picking up the five bags of clothes that she had bought for Kakashi and took them upstairs to his room before coming back down stairs and picking up her cell phone and a phone book and looked up the hospital that Sauske had most likely been taken too.

And found out what room he was in as well as his current condition and was _relieved_ to know that he was still alive. Apparently his wounds, while serious, hadn't been completely life threatening. At least not right off the bat. But if he had been left to bleed a while longer he would have run the risk of bleeding to death.

Uzu filed the information away in the back of her mind and thanked the person on the other end of the line and hung up the phone as she caught sight of silver and black out of the corner of her eye and looked towards the front door, that she had left open a little while ago, and found Kakashi standing there looking wary.

"Are you coming in? Or are you going to hide outside a little bit longer?"

He stared at her for a moment or so then tilted his head to the side a little bit. "Who were you talking too?" He asked curiously. Wondering if she had been contacting someone from the village. But then mentally shook himself when he remembered that there was a chance that the village no longer existed.

He'd thought so ever since earlier this morning when he had taken apart that odd black_ thingy_ that had upset her so much. He'd just found the technology in that black thingy so oddly _advanced_ that it had occurred to him that he still didn't know where he was.

Or to be more accurate, he didn't know _when_ he was.

All he knew was that the technology in this strange place, was far too advanced. And there was a mountain of things from the Leaf village, down the hall in the study. Things that he had thought that he would never see again.

All of them _aged_ and _fragile_.

Scrolls made of fine parchment that was now so aged and worn that if the paper was so much as breathed on, it would turn to dust. He had seen kunai. The steel chipped and rusted. He'd seem spears, swords, masks, and other things.

All of them set on a velvety soft cushion surrounded by protective glass.

And then there had been the ink painting. Something that only Sai could have created. The edges had been torn and crinkled, the colors dulled by time, yet he had been able to see every thing in it so clearly. It had been a picture of Naruto in his thirties, standing next to an unfamiliar woman. And they had been surrounded by six kids. All of them blond haired and blue eyed. All of them smiling.

Kakashi had been so stunned, and over whelmingly happy by the discovery of the picture that he had stood in the study for a good two hours before the woman had woken up, just staring at it and trying hard not to cry.

So Naruto had survived the brilliant explosion that he had thought ended the world. He'd went on to marry and have children.

Kakashi had felt both elated and greatly saddened by this knowledge because he hadn't been there to teach the children of his Kage. He hadn't been there to lend a helping hand anymore when things had gotten difficult.

He didn't know where in the vast world Naruto and the rest of his precious people had settled after the war. He didn't know how many years Naruto had lived, or if any of his children still lived-

He'd stopped his train of thought right there and started to go over everything that had happened to him from the time of the explosion to the time he had found himself face to face with Sauske and the woman that he had mistakenly thought was Naruto.

Naruto's bloodline still lived.

Just as surely as Sauske's cursed blood still lived.

The woman taking care of him wasn't Naruto. She was one of his children. Or maybe even a grandchild who bore such a strong and striking resemblance to the blond Kage. Just like the dark haired young man must be of Sauske's blood line to bear such a strong resemblance to the raven.

He'd meant to ask the woman about the things in the study this morning, but she had dragged him out of the house kicking and screaming after finding what was left of the black thingy. She got a slightly guilty look on her face for a second and he couldn't help but think, _Ah. I see._

So she had been trying to contact the raven. It was disappointing to him, to know that Sauske's blood line still held so much sway over Naruto's own, yet at the same time it was oddly comforting. It would seem that time could change many things, except this.

He wasn't sure if he liked knowing that the raven's child/grandchild was so close to Naruto's, but then he supposed that he would have to watch the pair closely and step in when needed to keep certain mistakes from being made again.


	20. Chapter 20

For Cha who asked so nicely.

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Uzu didn't say much else to Kakashi after he asked who she had been trying to talk to earlier. She had merely gotten what she was sure was a guilty look on her face then quickly tried to distract him while she escaped to the kitchen to cook the dinner that she had promised him.

Kakashi however, was never the type of guy who was easily deterred from a path once he'd set himself to it, followed her into the kitchen and sat down in one of the high chairs sitting around the island in the middle of her kitchen and simply stared at her. Hoping to unnerve her enough to tell him something about the raven that she was so chummy with.

It didn't work though.

The woman was similar to Naruto in that regard as well as in appearance. Once she decided to ignore something, nothing you did (shy maiming and setting oneself afire) would gain her attention.

Finally after so long Kakashi finally decided the direct approach. "Tell me about him." It wasn't a question. It was an order.

Kakashi hadn't survived one war with Sauske just to get dragged into another one. He wanted to know if the raven that he'd met-er attacked- was anything like the Sauske that he had known. And if he was... Well it was best not to dwell on things too much.

It might spoil his chance to gather information.

The woman looked up from cutting some cabbage into thin strips and blinked at him, unsure of who he was talking about. She frowned and gave him a puzzled look and Kakashi felt the need to roll his eyes. God she was as dim as Naruto too from the looks of things.

He lifted one hand and grasped the long sleeved grey shirt that he was wearing and tugged at it then looked at her, silently willing her to take the hint. She gave him an 'Oh' look and flushed a little bit. "What exactly do you want to know about him?"

"What's he like?" _Is he good? Does he hurt you? Has he ever threatened you in any way?_ Kakashi wondered anxiously as he waited for her to answer.

"He's my best friend-" She said after a moment or so. "He's sort of shy, and weird. But not in a bad way. He's very thoughtful and worries about me all the time. He got hurt a while back while trying to protect me from being killed and because of it his mind isn't what it used to be..."

Kakashi tried not to show the worry that those words caused, but the feel of the bottom dropping out of his stomach was difficult to ignore. "Is he violent?" He asked after a moment or so. Again the woman stopped what she was doing to look at him, her expression curious.

"Feeling remorse for attacking him?"

"Hardly. I merely want to know about him."

She gave him a blood chilling look. "Your _not_ going to hurt him again." She growled at him as she used the sharp knife in her hand to point at him. Amazing him somewhat that she managed to do so without seeming threatening.

"That sounds strangely like an order." Kakashi commented as he studied her. She gave him a humorless smile.

"If I'm letting you live here rent free and buying you clothes and feeding you- Then yeah, it's an order. And I expect it to be _obeyed_." Kakashi's lips twitched a little bit in amusement.

"And if I don't listen?"

"Then you'll find yourself homeless and without a way to take care of yourself-" He opened his mouth to tell her that he had mad survival skills and could live off fo the land but she cut him off. "And what I mean by no means is that you wouldn't be able to hunt any of the wild life in the area for food. You wouldn't be able to use their skins for clothes or shelter. You wouldn't be able to do much of anything because of the laws now. And the people in these parts aren't likely to help you. They'll take one look at you, at how you act around others and they'll know that your dangerous to them and they'll run screaming. You would be left alone with no means to _survive_-"

Kakashi's face drained of all color as the full ramifications of what she was saying hit him like a ton of bricks. Leaving him looking shaken and sick.

Uzu looked at him again and felt an instant twinge of guilt for telling him such things. But it was for the most part true. Her mummy man needed to learn that acting his age (his actual ancient age) was _unacceptable_.

He couldn't run wild and free across the country side attacking people.

He'd get himself into trouble that he wouldn't be able to get out of doing thing like that. And she couldn't help but worry for both his safety and the safety of the general public.

She put the knife down and wiped her her hands on the dish towel that she had laying next to her cutting board and then walked around the island and reached out and tentatively grasped one of Kakashi's hands and flinched when he visibly jerked and looked at her with those eerie mismatched eyes of his.

He looked scared to her. She imagined that she would be too if she were in his position. He masked his frightened expression and looked away from her and pulled his hand from her grasp and settled it back in his lap and she felt like crying.

She stood there for a moment trying not to give in to her urge to cry when his hollow sounding voice cut through her thoughts. "I'm hungry. How long until dinner?"

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Well that's it for now...

Did it make any sense?

I'm not sure if it did. If not I'm sorry. I'm very, very tired and half asleep right now.


	21. Chapter 21

Kakashi had disappeared to some part of the house after dinner and though Uzu had looked for him for the past three hours straight she couldn't seem to locate him so that she could tell him that she was sorry for upsetting him so much.

It had be cruel of her to think that he would understand that she didn't really mean what she had said about throwing him out of the house and leaving him to die. She figured that she should at least find him and let him know that she wouldn't leave him to his own vices in such a way. It simply wasn't her nature no matter how upset she became.

But at the same time she had felt it important for him to know of the restrictions that would make things difficult for him. The world today was vastly different from his own after all and the laws enforced differently in many cases. But some things, no matter how modern, were dealt with in similar fashions to the world that he once knew.

She rounded the corner of the upstairs hall way for what must have been the hundredth time in the past hour and paused by one of the windows and leaned her shoulder against the window sill and sighed.

Dammit, wherever the man was; he was too damn good at hiding his presence. She couldn't find him anywhere!

And she'd looked everwhere that she could think of. In the lower floor of the house, in the living room, the study, the other rooms. She'd worked her way upstairs and checked every room, every bathroom, every closet. Even under all of the beds.

It was like Kakashi had disapeared into thin air.

Uzu sighed again, the sound less irritated sounding and more tired. She was starting to get a headache from all this shit. She looked out the window at the large trees in her yard. Noting that some of the waning sun light was filtering through the limbs and leaves, painting her yard a speckled perrywinkle blue with pinkish orange highlights.

The day was nearly gone. Just how long had she been looking for Kakashi anyways?

It had been full sun up when she had started so judging by the way her yard looked, the sun was starting to set. Which meant that she'd been at it for _hours_. She sighed again and lifted a hand to massage her right temple when she felt a particulaly vicious throbbing pain. She wasn't sure how long she stood there but by the time she felt like moving on she had a full blown migrane and was starting to feel sick to her stomach.

She needed to find Kakashi quickly so that she could apologise to him before she could call it an early night.

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Kakashi watched Uzu from his vantage point above her, on the ceiling. He'd run off after dinner intending to hide and sulk for a little bit while he sorted through the information that she had given him.

He knew that she hadn't exactly meant to threaten him. Just like he knew that she was looking for him so that she could apologise. But he wasn't ready to come out yet and face her.

He needed a little more time to think.

And even though he still needed time to think, it hadn't stopped him from trailing her through the house as he was now. But then he hadn't exactly expected his chakra net work to be in _total_ functioning order either. It had merely been a whim of desperation that had led him to his current position on the ceiling above her.

He heard her sigh and glanced down at her and frowned. She sounded tired. He saw her lift her hand and start massaging her temple and thought, _Ah, she is starting to feel_ _ill. _

He supposed that he shouldn't feel surprised that she was starting to feel ill. It had been hours since he'd run off and she'd started searching for him, after all. Yet for some strange reason, he was a little surprised.

He was surprised that she was even bothering to look for him when it was simply easier to give up. He was surprised that she was making herself ill with worry, and guilt. He watched her push away from the window and start walking again, this time she staggered a little bit from time to time.

And when she nearly fell, he'd had enough. He dropped down from the ceiling behind her and reached out and grasped her arm and pulled her back against him and held her in place with his other arm around her slender waist. Uzu tipped her head back and looked at him through glazed eyes. "Kashi?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry about earlier." Kakashi nodded his head in understanding and then bent down a little bit and picked her up.

"Don't worry about sparing my feelings Uzu. I prefer your honesty to lies." Kakashi said gently as he started walking. He reached her room a few minutes later and put her to bed figuring that she needed the rest since she hadn't been resting properly in the past few days.

He'd talk to her tomorrow when she was feeling better about what had happened earlier. But for now, he'd leave her to her rest.


	22. Chapter 22

I finally finished another story... Awesome.

I think I'm a little depressed. This must have been what my mom felt when I moved out-

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Uzu was running a high fever by morning the next day and Kakashi was getting worried because he didn't know what to do for her.

The medicines were different. Their containers had strange writings that he couldn't read and he had probably come dangerously close to poisoning her several times already.

If not for the fact that she spat out the several things that he had tried to give her to make her well again, she might have died. The knowledge of this paralyzed Kakashi in fear. If he accidentally killed her...what would happen to him?

Near as he could tell she lived alone.

There were no truly close neighbors. No one to come check up on her. No one to help her if she were to become sick like she was now.

How the fuck had she lived as long as she had without _someone_ watching over her? He wondered as he leaned back in the winged back chair that he had carried up from the kitchen and looked again at the various liquids in their clear containers and wondered what they were and which one would help her fever go down.

So far she had spit out the green stuff. The red and purple had made her violently ill and for a while had seemed to make her condition worse. So he wasn't touching them again until he knew what they were and what purpose they served.

The powdered stuff had been to difficult for her to swallow. She had choked and spat it out and simply lay on her bed spasming. There were some stuff that he had found in her fridge that was soft and sort of gel like. But it smelled strangely and tasted _horrible_. Kakashi knew this because after so many close calls, he had started to test out small doses of various things.

The orange stuff for instance had caused him to hallucinate for a while.

Luckily he had thought that something like that would happen and had tied one of his legs to the foot of Uzu's bed. Unfortunately...he'd partially _chewed_ through his own pants leg in an effort to escape before the stuff had worn off. And after it had worn off, he'd promptly taken the bottle and poured the stuff down the sink in the bathroom then returned and tried something else.

The next stuff he had tried, the yellow stuff; had put him to sleep in under ten minutes.

Something that his shinobi mind had yet to figure out. But he had found it's use and a little while ago had given a small dose to Uzu so that she would sleep a little better. After that he'd set everything aside and tried to think of herbal remedies that he could use.

But he didn't want to leave her for a long period of time to go look for herbs. Not only that but there was always a risk of the person being treated by the remedies, being highly allergic to the herbs.

And because he didn't know what she was allergic too or if she even had allergies to begin with, he was more or less stuck. He sighed tiredly and made himself comfortable in his chair and decided that it was probably for the best that he didn't know these things. He'd never really been good at nursing others back to health.

He must have dozed off at some point without realizing it. Because one minute Uzu was sound asleep in her bed, curled up on her side. And the next he jerked himself awake to find the bed empty and looked around and stopped when he saw Uzu standing across the room, holding onto the bathroom door with one hand and the other tightly clutching what looked like a shirt in her free hand.

Her blond hair was soaked with sweat, and the sleep shirt that he had changed her into yesterday was soaked as well. _Shit._ What the hell had her fever spiked so high? He wondered as he jumped up and all but ran across the room and wrapped his arms around her as he legs gave out and she started to fall. He pulled her back against his chest and sank to the floor with her, nearly flinching at how hot her skin felt under his hands.

"What are you doing out of bed?" He asked in a worried tone as he brushed her hair back from her face. She stared at him blankly for a moment before rasping.

"Hot. Burning up. Need to cool off..."

Kakashi nodded his head and scooped her up in his arms and stood up and carried her back to bed then left for a minute to fix a wet rag and when he came back out into the bedroom he froze at the sight of Uzu sitting on her bed without her shirt on.

_Oh my god._


End file.
